Page 25 of Blood Court (Cursed Darkness #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LYSITHEA

“They’re trying to kill you.”

Verik’s words echo in the cramped chamber as I lean against the maintenance crate, my throat raw from the controlled song that drove back the corruption. The dark veins have retreated for now, but I can feel them waiting, ready to creep forward the moment my guard drops.

“We need to figure out how,” I say, pushing past the nausea. “Food, water, air. It has to be something I encounter regularly.”

“Or someone.” His expression darkens. “Reena warned you about her father’s opposition connections. What if it goes deeper than that? What if they’ve been positioning assets throughout the academy?”

The possibility sends a chill through me. Kitchen staff, maintenance workers, even students. How many of the people I interact with daily could be enemy agents? Could it even be Reena doing this to me?

“We need to get back to the others,” I say, struggling to my feet. The chamber spins slightly, exhaustion from fighting the corruption catching up with me. “Dathan and Evren need to know what we’ve discovered.”

Verik steadies me with a hand on my elbow. “Can you manage the walk back?”

“I’ll have to.” I take a deep breath, tasting the metallic tang of the academy’s recycled air. Even that could be tainted. “How long until their lectures end?”

“Twenty minutes, maybe less.” He glances at the passage leading back to the main academy. “But we can’t just walk into the common area. Too many eyes.”

He’s right. The opposition knows we’re onto them now. The careful surveillance will give way to more direct action.

“The magical warfare training room,” I suggest. “Level three, east wing. They’re usually empty during lecture hours, and there are multiple exits if we need to run.”

Verik nods and leads me back into the narrow passage. The corruption writhes under my skin, responding to my movement and stress. I can feel it testing the boundaries of my recent purge, searching for weaknesses, but I won’t let it have any.

We emerge through a hidden panel near the third-floor bedrooms. The hallway appears empty, but Verik motions for me to wait while he checks the sightlines. His architect’s eye catalogues every angle, every potential hiding spot.

“Clear,” he whispers, and we move quickly toward the east wing.

The training rooms occupy an entire section of DarkHallow’s third level, each one designed for different types of magical warfare practice. We slip into the largest chamber, a circular space with reinforced walls and dampening enchantments that muffle sound.

“Now we wait,” Verik says, positioning himself near the door.

I sink onto one of the practice benches. The corruption flares suddenly, a sharp pain that makes me double over. The dark veins spread, advancing down my arms to my hands.

“It’s getting worse,” I gasp. “The purge is wearing off faster than before.”

Verik moves to my side, his hellfire warming the air around us. “How often can you do that? The singing, I mean.”

“However long it takes, but it’s not a solution. We need to find the source of it.”

“We will.”

The door opens, and Dathan slips inside, followed closely by Evren. Both look tense, their usual easy confidence replaced by wariness.

“What’s happened?” Dathan asks immediately, sensing the tension.

“How did you find us?” I ask, instead.

“Followed the trail of the Scar,” he murmurs, looking at me. “What happened?”

“The corruption is flaring erratically. But we figured out what’s causing it.”

Evren moves closer, his pale eyes examining the dark veins with clinical interest.

“Not the grimoire?” Dathan asks.

“Opposition forces,” Verik answers. “They’ve been poisoning her.”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees as Dathan’s nightmare magic responds to his anger. Shadow tendrils writhe around his feet, seeking targets. “They’ve been what?”

“Verik contained my power while I sang, and the corruption retreated again, like last time. My Siren abilities fight it.”

“But not cure it permanently,” Dathan observes. “You’d need to identify and eliminate the source.”

“That’s the problem. It could be anything. Food, water, air, contact with contaminated objects.” I list the possibilities we’ve already discussed. “Or someone with regular access could be applying it directly.”

“They’re escalating,” Verik adds. “Now that we’ve completed two trials and grown stronger, they’re moving to direct action. They want us to fail.”

“Which means they’re getting desperate,” I say. “Whatever timeline they’re working with, we’ve disrupted it.”

“Good.” Dathan’s voice carries lethal promise. “Let them sweat.”

I wish I could share his confidence, but the corruption is already creeping forward again. The temporary reprieve from my purge is fading faster than expected.

A soft chime echoes through the academy, signalling the end of the lecture period. Within minutes, the hallways will fill with students heading to their next classes.

“We need a plan,” I say, touching the advancing corruption on my arms. “I can purge it temporarily, but it’s getting stronger each time.”

“The opposition knows we’re onto them now,” Dathan says, his shadows coiling restlessly around his feet. “They’ll escalate.”

Evren nods silently, his pale eyes tracking the corruption’s progress with clinical interest.

“How long before they make a real move?” Verik asks, positioning himself near the door.

As if summoned by his words, footsteps echo in the corridor outside. Multiple sets, moving with purpose rather than the random chaos of students changing classes.

The footsteps stop outside our door. Muffled voices, too quiet to make out words, but the tone suggests coordination rather than casual conversation.

“Other exit?” Dathan whispers.

“Behind the practice dummies,” I point to the far corner. “Service passages.”

We move silently across the chamber. I’m halfway to the hidden exit when the corruption flares without warning, sending me to my knees with a strangled gasp that echoes in the reinforced space.

The voices outside stop abruptly.

“In here,” someone says.

The door handle turns.

Verik’s hellfire erupts around us just as the first figure enters. His face is unfamiliar, too weathered for a student.

“Take the girl alive,” he orders his companions. “The others are expendable.”

Dathan’s shadows slam into the intruders like a wall, but there are six of them, prepared for magical resistance. Steel weapons gleam in their hands, enchanted to cut through defensive spells.

“Like hell,” Dathan growls.

The lead attacker raises his hand, magic crackling between his fingers, something old and vicious.

I react without thinking, my voice rising in a sharp note that shatters his concentration. I frown. Why didn’t it shatter his brain? I glance at Verik, who grunts as the force of my sound waves hits him, and I sigh.

Somehow, my magic has latched onto Verik, which is now seeking him out. How the hell am I supposed to defend myself like this?

“Break the fucking connection!” I yell at him as two more attackers push through the doorway, flanking us. They move like soldiers, not academics.

“I can’t!” Verik’s hellfire roars outward, forcing one attacker back against the reinforced wall. The flames can’t touch the steel blade in the man’s hand, but they superheat the air around it.

I try to move toward the back exit, but the room spins violently around me.

“Lysithea!” Verik’s warning comes just in time.

I throw myself sideways as an attacker lunges with an enchanted dagger.

The blade passes inches from my throat. I hit the stone floor hard, the impact jarring my teeth.

The attacker pivots, his face a mask of cold determination as he raises the dagger for another strike.

Around us, the room is in chaos. Verik’s hellfire is a contained storm, unable to bypass the intruders’ enchanted steel.

Dathan’s shadows are being sliced to ribbons by two men moving with brutal efficiency.

My own shadow magic has abandoned me, probably due to the corruption, but who knows? I kick out, my heel connecting with the attacker’s knee. He grunts, stumbling, but doesn’t go down. The dagger arcs towards my chest.

A blur of ice intercepts him. Evren’s hand clamps around the man’s wrist. A snapping sound echoes in the chamber as bone gives way. The man screams, a high, thin sound of agony as the enchanted dagger clatters to the floor.

Evren doesn’t release him. He drives a knee into the man’s gut, doubling him over. But the move leaves his back exposed. Another attacker, seeing his chance, lunges forward.

“Evren!” I shout, but the sound is a weapon aimed at the wrong target.

Verik grunts, staggering as my power slams into him, but he diverts his hellfire to blast the fucker trying to kill Evren.

The attacker Verik blasted hits the floor, a smoking ruin.

It buys us a second, nothing more. Two of the intruders press their advantage, their enchanted steel carving through Dathan’s nightmare constructs like they’re made of smoke.

He snarls, his shadows reforming as fast as they’re destroyed, a furious, desperate defence.

I’m a liability. My greatest weapon is a threat to my own side. I scramble back, my mind racing. My shadow magic is a void, the corruption a suffocating blanket over my power. I’m a queen without a crown, a siren without a song.

Evren moves like a wraith of pure vengeance. He shatters an attacker’s arm with a block, then drives a spike of ice through the man’s chest. The body freezes solid before it hits the floor.

That leaves three. They adjust their tactics, their movements a cold, coordinated dance. One of them pulls a coiled net from his belt, its threads glowing with a sick, magic-dampening light. He throws it.

I dive, rolling behind a practice dummy as the net hits the floor where I just was. The threads sizzle, eating the magic in the air.

The man with the net advances. I grip the heavy practice dummy, a solid block of wood and iron. He expects me to run. He expects me to be weak.

I’m not.

With a roar of pure rage that slams into Verik, I heave the dummy, swinging it like a battering ram. It connects with his chest with a sickening crunch of bone and metal. He goes down, the net falling from his nerveless fingers.

“Nice,” Dathan says, moving into place to protect me now that we have some space. “Who are these fuckers?”

“Opposition forces,” I grit out. “Obviously.”

He snorts. “Well, yeah…” He lashes out with his power, cracking an advancing soldier in the side of his head. “… but who are they?”

“Fucked if I know,” I growl and glare at Verik as he forms a wall in front of me. “We need to break this connection!”

“I can’t,” he says.

“Then find a fucking way!” I roar, the soundwaves slamming Verik back a step. He groans, clutching his chest, but the hellfire around us doesn’t waver. He’s taking the hit, using his own body as a shield.

The two remaining attackers see their chance. They move in sync, both circling Dathan and Evren, separating them from us. They know what’s going on. Verik is protecting them from me, inadvertently, but still, it’s a shitshow.

They’re blocking Verik’s hellfire with some sort of device that is making it rebound.

We need to get past it. I grip his hand, and he looks down at me, giving me a swift nod.

I press my fingers to the Soul Scar on his arm, and he hisses.

The brand on my back flares with red-hot pain, but it’s fuelling me, not trying to disarm me.

The power arcs between us. A circuit of pain and hellfire. Verik grunts, his body a conduit for my voice. The link isn’t breaking. It’s changing. He’s become my amplifier. My fucking cannon.

He meets my gaze, hellfire eyes blazing with a wild, terrifying understanding. He gets it. He feels it.

The two remaining soldiers charge, their enchanted blades held high. They see a weakness. They see a liability. They are about to see a fucking goddess.

I take a breath. I open my mouth. I scream.

The sound doesn’t hit Verik this time. It hits the attackers.

Their eyes bleed, their noses gushing.

I cut off the scream and shout to the guys, “Duck!”

They dive off in different directions as the heads of the attackers explode.

The silence that follows is absolute. The reinforced walls are painted with a grotesque mural of blood and brain matter. It’s a fucking mess. I inhale deeply and smile. The corruption has been burned out of me for a while again. I can feel it has recoiled from my power.

Verik grins. A wild, bloody, terrifying grin. “Well,” he rasps. “That’s one way to solve a problem.”

“Nicely done, princess. But want to explain why it took so long?”

“Long story,” I mutter.

The double doors to the training room bang open, and we all look over as Blackgrove strides in, his face thunderous.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “Fuck.”